A Flower for A Flower
by Rapture
Summary: Hi! This is my first fanfic here as I am a fairly new author. I would greatly appreciate it if you would read my story and leave a comment. It is set in MWPP times, and in my opinion is some of my best work. Thanks!


A/N This is a M(W)PP L/J fic

A/N This is a M(W)PP L/J fic. If you're wondering why I put Wormtail in brackets, it is because I don't like him (let's face it, who does?) and he will not be featuring much in this fic. There will be seven parts: each part will focus on one year at Hogwarts. There will be some romance later on, but not yet. (I don't think!) This series will have a little bit of everything in it. Romance, Humour, Action, Adventure, Drama, Horror and Mystery.

A Flower For A Flower

By Rapture

Part One

"Aaah!" an eleven-year-old girl with red hair and piercing green eyes screamed. A large brown owl had swooped in through the open window while she had been eating her cornflakes. "Aaah! Mum! An Owl...with a letter?" the girl sounded puzzled.

"Lily, what is it darling?" Sharna Evans hurried into the kitchen, "oh, my!" she sat down quickly.

"What's it doing here?" Lily whispered, as though afraid the Owl could hear her.

"Honey, I think you'd better read the letter," said Sharna as the Owl started pecking at the toast in the rack.

Lily gingerly picked up the letter. The envelope seemed to be made of a thick parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. Lily turned the envelope over and noticed a wax seal, with a lion, badger, eagle and snake surrounding a large letter 'H'. She opened the envelope and pulled out a letter, also written in emerald-green ink, and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order Of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc, Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Evans,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Lily stared at the letter in amazement. Not really thinking, she pulled out another piece of parchment from the envelope. This seemed to be a list of the equipment she would need. There were all sorts of strange things, such as 'crystal phials' and 'protective dragon hide gloves'.

"Mum, what's this about?" asked Lily in confusion.

"I don't know honey, I don't know, perhaps we'd better fetch your father." Lily nodded.

"DAD!" she called.

Lily heard thundering feet on the stairs and looked up expectantly, but instead of her Father, she saw her fifteen-year-old sister Petunia.

"What's this?" she said loudly, picking up Lily's letter. She quickly scanned the letter and then screamed "WITCH!" and ran from the room. A few moments later, her Father walked into the room.

"What's going on?" he asked. In answer, Lily pushed the letter towards him. He read the letter quickly, and then said calmly, "we should have expected this Sharna, I think I had a great, great, great, once removed, great something or other who was a wizard."

"Lily, you're a witch." said her Mother.

***

A month later, Lily found herself on platform nine at Kings Cross Station. In the previous month, she had been to a strange place called Diagon Alley. Here she had bought all her stuff for Hogwarts. Her parents had bought her a tawny owl, which she immediately christened Holly. She had acquired many interesting things on her visit to Diagon alley, but by far the most exciting was her magic wand. It was ten and a quarter inches long, swishy and made of willow, with a dragon heartstring. She had also had to buy a set of black robes. She hadn't wanted to wear them to the station, so they were packed neatly in her trunk. She had everything ready, there was only one problem. She didn't know how to get on to the platform. Her ticket said that the train would depart from platform nine and three-quarters, which logically should be three-quarters of the way between platforms nine and ten. But it wasn't there. Her Mum had tried asking the guard, but he had told her there was no such thing. At a quarter to eleven Lily was getting worried, what if she couldn't get onto the platform?

Lily noticed a tall girl wearing glasses walking along the platform. She was pushing a trunk along on a trolley, and she had an owl. Apparently, Sharna had noticed her to, as she hurried over and asked her how to get onto the platform.

"Hello, My name is Sharna Evans, my daughter Lily is in her first year, and she doesn't know how to get onto the platform, how does she?" She said this in a rush.

"My name is Rita Skeeter, I'm in my last year, all you do to get onto the platform is walk straight through the barrier," she said to Lily, "but, you'll have to stay here, no Muggles allowed." she said to Sharna.

The girl walked off towards the barrier, and walked straight through it.

"Goodbye honey. I'll see you at Christmas, okay?" Sharna said while hugging Lily, "come 

on Petunia, say goodbye to your sister." she pushed Petunia forward.

"Goodbye." she said tersely, and when her mother was out of earshot, said "and good riddance!"

Lily took a deep breath, and walked straight at the barrier, pushing her trolley in front of her with Holly's cage balanced on top. She closed her eyes as she neared the barrier, and when she opened them again, she was on the platform! There was a large red steam engine and lots of students milling around. Some of them were wearing Hogwarts robes, but many of them were dressed in normal clothes. Lily pushed her trolley along, looking in all the compartments to try and find an empty one. Finally she found an empty one near the end of the train. She climbed in and heaved her trunk up the step. She sat down in one of the empty seats and stared out the window. After another five or so minutes, the train began to move. Two girls walked into her compartment heaving large trunks behind them. One had blonde hair, and the other black.

"Mind if we sit here?" asked one of them. Lily shook her head.

The girls flopped down in the seats opposite Lily.

"I'm Heather Copperfield." said the blonde.

"And I'm Rose Barns." said the other.

"Lily Evans." said Lily.

Heather had short bottle blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. She looked quite old for her age, and had curves in all the right places. She was also wearing make up. Rose was the complete opposite of Heather. Rose had long, straight black hair, and she was very skinny. She had a heart-shaped face which was chalk-white, her eyes seemed to be outlined with black kohl and her lips were black with lipstick. She had a truly gothic look about her. Compared to these two girls, Lily felt extremely young and babyish.

"Are you in your first year?" asked Heather.

"Yes, you?" Lily replied.

"Yeah."

"Are you Muggle born?" asked Rose.

"Muggle? What's that?" asked Lily frowning.

"It's a person who isn't magic. If you don't know what a Muggle is, you must be Muggle born." said Heather.

"Oh. Are your parents Witches and Wizards then?"

"Yep. I've also got five brothers and two sisters, all older than me." said Heather.

"I'm half and half," said Rose, "my Mum's a Muggle, but my Dad's a Wizard. He works for the ministry. My Mum had a bit of a shock when my Dad told her about him being a wizard."

The girls sat talking for quite a while longer. Rose was just explaining the rules of Quidditch to Lily, when the door of their compartment opened. A boys head poked round the door. He had longish hair and brown eyes. He came into the compartment and slammed the door, right in another boy's face. This boy had untidy black hair, brown eyes and round glasses. The second boy opened the door again and repeated the procedure, this time banging the door in a third boy's face. This boy had light brown hair and deep blue eyes. The third boy also came in, but he did not slam the door in anybody's face, seeing as there was no one else to slam the door into.

"Hello!" said the first boy, "I'm Sirius Black, and these are James Potter and Remus Lupin." The other two boys smiled at the girls. They smiled back.

"Do you mind if we sit in here? It's just the stench of Snape was just too overpowering, and if we'd stayed there a minute longer, I would have been sick."

"No go ahead, sit down," said Heather.

"I'm Heather, and these are Lily and Rose." she said.

Sirius smiled mischievously.

"Two flowers and a bush!" he said gleefully.

It took the girls a moment to figure out what he meant. To Lily and Rose, this was a compliment, but to Heather it was an insult. She leapt on Sirius and wrestled him to the floor.

"I'll have you know, Heather is not a bush, it is also a flower." she said.

"Yeah, right."

Heather raised her hand threateningly. Sirius cringed. 

"All right, all right! Three flowers!"

"That's better." Heather said as she stood up.

"But I still think that Heather is a bush!" Sirius said.

Heather scowled at him.

"Is he always like this?" she asked James.

"All the time. If you're friends with Sirius, you'll probably have more detentions than anyone, well except maybe Sirius himself." he said.

"Well, we'd better not be friends with him then, had we?" said Lily jokingly.

"Aww! Please!" Sirius looked at them with puppy dog eyes.

"All right, I suppose." She patted him on his head, "besides, you're quite cute."

Sirius grinned. "I do try." he said in mock modesty. He then faked a loom of concentration and peered at a necklace that Rose was wearing.

"I like your necklace," he said, causing Rose to look down. He then flipped her nose.

"Oy!" Rose said.

"No, I really do like it." Sirius said, laughing. The necklace was a skull and crossbones.

"My parents _hate_ it. They hate me wearing this make-up, and looking like a goth. My Dad says it gives a bad name to Wizards, and he forbade me to wear it to come to Hogwarts. But I put it on on the train anyway." Rose shrugged.

Just then, a small fat boy, even shorter than Lily walked in. He had a pointed nose and small watery eyes. There was something about him that Lily didn't like. He reminded her of a rat.

"Hello." said the boy in an amazingly squeaky voice, "my name is Peter Pettigrew. You haven't seen my cat anywhere, have you? Only I've lost him, and he gets ever so scared when he's on his own." The boy started to cry.

They tried to engage themselves in conversation about the different school houses, but every time someone tried to speak, Peter let out a loud sob. Finally, Rose decided she couldn't take it anymore, and was about to tell him to shut up, when the door was slammed open again. In the doorway stood a thin boy with disgustingly greasy hair, and uneven yellow teeth. Behind him stood a boy with white-blond hair and pale blue eyes. A strange smell entered the carriage when they did. The boy with the greasy hair sneered at them.

"Who are you?" he asked, "better not be Mudblood filth. They don't belong in Hogwarts."

"I'm James Potter, and this is Remus Lupin and Sirius Black." said James.

"Oh, I've heard of you. You're Dad's an auror, right?" said the pale boy.

James nodded.

"I'm Severus Snape and this is Lucius Malfoy. Who are your girlfriends?" said the greasy haired boy.

Heather spoke up.

"I'm Heather, these are Rose and Lily, and we're not their girlfriends!"

"Oh. How nice. Flowers!" sneered Snape.

He raised a long finger and pointed it at the girls. You'd better watch out, you know. Lily is the death flower. Any one with that name is destined to have a very short life span. And you," he looked at Rose, "Roses are red, and so is blood. You are probably to have a short life span too. And Heather's just a stupid name. Who'd want to be called Heather?"

"Yeah? And who'd want to be called Severus! At least my name is a flower, yours is probably Latin for 'go wash your hair slimeball!'" Heather replied. Snape started to retaliate, but Malfoy began to speak to Rose.

"Why do you look like that? With all that black make up?" he asked.

"Because I want to." Rose said.

"But it looks stupid." Malfoy said.

Rose looked as if she wanted to retaliate, but was cut off by a loud wail from Peter.

"I'll never find Puffy-cat! Never! Never!" he ran out of the carriage crying, with his head in his hands.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" asked Sirius looking at Snape.

"Yes. We'll see you later. I only hope your not in Slytherin, because we're going to be!" with that, he stormed out of their carriage, closely followed by Malfoy.

"How does he know he's going to be in Slytherin? I mean, you don't really know until you get there, do you?" asked Rose.

"Well, all of Snape's and Malfoy's family have been in Slytherin, it's a bit of a tradition, can you imagine anyone like that in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff?" replied James.

Everyone nodded in agreement, except Lily, because she didn't know much about the school houses.

"What house are your brothers and sisters in?" Lily asked Heather.

"Well, Mike, Luke, Joe, the twins Bryn and Rob and Ceri are all in Gryffindor, but my other sister Sarah, is in Ravenclaw, for some reason," Heather replied, "I hope I'm in Gryffindor though."

"Mmm." Said Sirius slowly, "you sure have a lot of brothers and sisters, you're parents must have been at it like rabbits!"

Heather hit him. "I like my family the way it is thankyou very much. Plus, being the youngest, I always get spoiled, and hardly ever get blamed for anything. "

"Have you got any brothers and sisters?" Heather asked Lily.

"Yes, one sister, Petunia." She made a face, "she's thirteen and thinks she rules the planet."

"Another flower! You, know, if we just added a couple of Daisy's and Buttercup's, you could make a garden!" said Sirius.

This time, all three of the girls hit him. He pretended to take offence and turned his back on them.

"If this is what I'm going to get for trying to be friendly! I don't know why I bother!"

"You bother, because you like us." Heather said, "I mean, we're pretty," Sirius snorted, "I'll ignore that, we're fun, we're clever and we're mischievous. What more could you want in a friend?"

"Think a lot of yourself, don't you!" James said.

"Oh, shut up! Just because we have so many good qualities, and you have none." Lily said.

"Who said I didn't have good qualities?" James replied indignantly, "just ask Sirius, he'll tell you." He looked expectantly at Sirius.

Sirius scratched his head, and pretended to be thinking. He thought for a couple of minutes, and then said, "Nope, sorry Potter, can't think of any."

James hit him.

"You know, that's the sixth time I've been hit so far! Why are you always picking on me?" He pretended to cry, just as Peter had done earlier. He ended the performance by wailing loudly: "I want my Puffy-cat! I want my Puffy-cat!" Little did he know that Peter was standing just outside the door, and could hear every word.

"Oh, you'll pay for this! You'll pay!" Little did he know that this was to become true in many years time.

A couple of hours later, when it was starting to get dark, and they were soon to arrive, Rose realised something.

"You know," she said, "we really ought to get changed, I mean, we'll be there soon."

"Go ahead." said Sirius.

"What! We're not getting changed in front of you!" exclaimed Heather.

"All right then, go out into the corridor then." Sirius replied.

"NO! You go out into the corridor while we get changed, then we'll go out into the corridor while you get changed!" Heather said sounding exasperated.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" he slapped himself on the head.

"Because, Sirius my dear friend, you are a pervert." said Remus.

This time, it was Remus who was hit by Sirius. The boys made their way out of the carriage, to go and wait in the corridor.

"So," Rose said, when the boys had closed the door, "what do you think of them?"

"They're a bit stupid, well, Sirius is anyway." said Lily.

"I think they could be fun, and they look up to playing pranks, which is good." said Heather.

About five minutes later, the girls were outside in the corridor, and they boys were having a similar conversation.

"I think they're cute." said Sirius.

James hit him around the head with his robes.

"Sirius, Remus is right, you are a pervert." James said.

"NO! I didn't mean cute in that way, I meant cute as in aaah! cute." Sirius said slowly, as if talking to a very young child. As an afterthought, he added, "well, Rose and Lily are, that Heather's a tiger!"

Remus smiled at James.

"What's betting that Heather and Sirius will end up together in a few years time?" he said.

"Ten galleons." James said.

***

They had arrived at Hogsmeade station, and were now being ushered to a cluster of boats by a huge man, who looked like a giant.

"Firs' years over 'ere! Firs' years come this way!"

All the first years followed the man nervously to the edge of a large lake. It was still and dark, and looked very cold.

"No more 'an four to a boat!" the giant called out cheerfully. Lily, Rose and Heather climbed into one boat, and to Rose's disgust, they were followed by Peter Pettigrew. He was clutching a cat to his chest.

"Oh, hello." he said recognising the three girls, "I found Mr Puffy-cat. Some twins called Bryn and Rob had taken him. They were trying to change him blue. But I rescued him."

Heather looked up into the sky, as if she hadn't heard the remark about her brothers. She thought it was best to keep quiet, brothers were embarrassing!

The trip across the lake was uneventful, apart from when Peter's cat, Mr Puffy-cat fell in. Peter dived in after him, almost capsizing the boat. When they arrived at the water edge, everyone clambered out of the boats and followed the giant to the front door. He knocked on the door three times. It creaked open. On the threshold, stood a formidable looking woman. She introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, the deputy headmistress. Professor McGonagall led them through another set of doors, and into a large hall. The ceiling of the hall looked as if it was open to the sky above. There were four long tables set out in the hall, all filled with students. Above each table, there was a large banner, suspended in the air by magic. Each banner was a different colour, and had a picture of an animal on it. One was blue, with a bronze eagle, another was yellow with a badger, another was red with a golden lion and the last was green, and depicted a silver serpent. The first years were led to the opposite side of the hall, where stood a larger table with the teachers sitting around. Professor McGonagall walked from the hall into a side room, then emerged minutes later carrying a stool and a patched, frayed wizard's hat. She placed the hat on the stool and stood back. The hall listened expectantly. Lily wondered what was going on, when a tear in the brim of the hat opened, and the hat began to sing."

_"Once upon a time, so very long ago,_

_There were four great wizards, whose names you must know._

_Each of these great wizards, founded their own house,_

_Whose mascots tell the story, they were neither horse nor mouse._

_In Gryffindor, I hear you say, there lives the brave of heart,_

_But if you lie and trick and thieve, you will have to depart._

_Hufflepuff, a grand old house, many thrive there,_

_But if you don't like honesty, they'll drag you out by your hair._

_In Ravenclaw, the eagle house, you have to be quite clever,_

_But if you don't abide the rules, you'll be banished forever._

_And lastly, old Slytherin, if you don't mind being sly,_

_But if you befriend a Gryffindor, they will make you cry!_

_Hogwarts, is a fine old school, where you sure should belong,_

_So try me on, don't be afraid, and I'll let you join the throng!"_

The hall burst into applause as the hat finished singing. McGonagall walked to the front of a platform, holding a roll of parchment in one hand.

"When I call your name, you will come and try the hat on. When it calls out the house you are going to be in, go and sit at the correct table." McGonagall paused, "understood?" the first years nodded. "Very well then."

'All we have to do is try on the hat!' This thought pleased Lily a lot.

"Ambrose, Laura." McGonagall called the first student's name. A short girl with brown hair and glasses hurried up to try on the hat. She pulled it over her eyes, and it immediately declared her a 'HUFFLEPUFF!'

"Anderson, Vivien."

"SLYTHERIN!" A tall lanky boy with spots, and a stud in his nose went to sit at the Slytherin table, which welcomed him with a great cheer.

"Barns, Rose."

Rose, looking very green made her way up to the platform very slowly. She dropped the hat over her eyes and after a couple of minutes the hat shouted out 'GRYFFINDOR!' The table with the red banner overhead cheered loudly. Rose removed the hat from her head, and hurried to sit at the table.

"Black, Sirius."

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Sirius leapt up, took the hat off his head and walked over to the Gryffindor table. He sat opposite Rose. Next to be sorted was "Burns, Louise." who became the first Ravenclaw. Then, it was Heather's turn.

She walked up to the platform and put the hat nervously on her head. She sat there for about five seconds, then the hat named her a Gryffindor too. Lily now wanted more than anything to be in Gryffindor, seeing as both Heather and Rose were now. A few more names, Duggle, Donce, Elliss and then it was Lily's turn.

"Evans, Lily."

She walked up to the platform. What was only about four metres seemed like four miles. The last thing she saw before the hat dropped over her eyes, was Heather and Rose with their fingers crossed. She smiled; at least they were rooting for her.

"Hmm. Lily Evans, I believe?" said a small voice in her head "Yes? I seem to remember an Evans many, many years ago, probably an ancestor of yours. Yes yes yes. But, to the matter in hand! I see you are quite clever, you could go far in Ravenclaw, but you have a liking for breaking all the rules, so you can't go there. I don't think you'd suit Hufflepuff, and you're muggle-born, so definitely not Slytherin. In that case, we'd better make it GRYFFINDOR!" The hat shouted out the last word so that the whole hall could hear.

Lily made her way over to the Gryffindor table, and slipped into a seat next to Heather, ready to watch the rest of the sorting. She watched as McGonagall passed through the letters of the alphabet. Remus Lupin was made a Gryffindor immediately. Much to the girls' dismay, Peter Pettigrew was also made a Gryffindor, and to add to that dismay, he came and seated himself next to them. After a pair of twins had been sorted, it was James' turn. He walked to the platform and tried on the hat. He too became a Gryffindor. Lily clapped hard with the rest of the table. There were too other girls made Gryffindors. They were called Nicola Rogers and Rebecca Sketchley. Nicola had blonde hair and blue eyes, and Rebecca had black hair and hazel eyes.

When the last person (Williams, Topaz) had been sorted into Ravenclaw, an old man with a long white beard stood up. Lily supposed that this was Dumbledore.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few notices to make before the feast can begin," Sirius groaned and rubbed his stomach, "firstly, we have a new caretaker! Please join me in welcoming Mr Argus Filch!" There was scattered applause, "Mr Filch has a cat, and he advises you to stay away from her, because she doesn't like children. Secondly, there has been a very large, and very dangerous whomping willow planted in the grounds. I advise you to stay away from this tree, unless you wish to be severely injured." Was it Lily's imagination, or did Dumbledore's eyes flicker over to the Gryffindor table where James, Sirius and Remus were sitting? "Now, tuck in!"

Lily had never seen so much food in one place before. The previously empty plates were now filled with the most delicious foods Lily had ever seen. Once she had eaten her fill, she sat back to watch her friends. Sirius, who seemed to have a strange liking for food, was still wolfing it down, like there was no tomorrow. The others, like herself had finished. Soon, the plates were empty, and with a loud groan from Sirius, they were told to go up to bed. They followed their prefects up many sets of stairs, until they finally came to a portrait of a fat lady in a silk pink dress.

"The password is Lemmings." said a tall boy wearing glasses at the front of the crowd. The portrait of the fat lady swung open, and all the Gryffindors climbed in. Lily found herself in a large circular room with squashy armchairs and a blazing fire. It was decorated in reds and gold's, the house colours.

"Girls, follow Sandra, she will show you your dormitories, and boys follow me. I will show you yours." said the tall boy wearing glasses.

Lily's first week passed in a rush. She decided that her favourite class was Charms, and her least favourite class was potions. They had potions with the Slytherins, and the potions teacher was head of Slytherin house. Her name was Professor Serpentine, and she was indeed very much like a snake.

On a Saturday, three weeks into the term, Sirius decided that they should do their first prank. He decided that they should shave Mrs Norris's hair off. James and Remus thought that this was incredibly funny, but Lily, Rose and Heather were sceptical.

"We could get caught!" said Rose, "I don't want a detention in the very first week of school, my Dad would kill me!"

"We won't get caught, because James has this." Sirius pulled out a long silvery cloak from behind him.

"Oh, WOW! Is that an Invisibility cloak?" asked Heather.

"Yep," said James proudly, "It's been in my family for generations, my Dad said that he used it mostly for sneaking down to the kitchens to steal food."

"How come I never thought of sneaking down to the kitchens? I mean, they don't exactly serve you much food here, do they? You'd think they were trying to starve us!" said Sirius.

"You can't be serious!" exclaimed Lily.

"Oh, but I am Sirius!"

"NO! I mean you can't be serious about them trying to starve us! I've never had such large meals before in my life!" said Lily.

"Lily, Lily, Lily. You have a lot to learn about Sirius. His appetite is larger than the whole schools put together." said James.

"So, what about it? Do you think we should shave Mrs Norris?" asked Sirius, hastily changing the subject."

"Well," said Rose slowly, "I think we should do the opposite, if we shave her, we'd have a lot of evidence to get rid of, so I think we should do a spell to make her hair grow long and curly."

"I like the idea of shaving her." said Sirius stubbornly.

"No, it will be more funny if she has to drag a long mane of hair around, than if she was naked." said Heather.

"Well, if you put it that way," Sirius grinned, "I suppose we could make her hair grow long and curly, the only problem is, how?"

"I know how," said Lily, "Professor Flitwick told us in Charms."

"You actually listen in Charms?" James asked, looking awed.

"Yes. The incantation is growindius," said Lily impatiently.

"Okay, is everyone agreed?" asked Remus; everyone nodded their heads, "right, then we'll do it tonight."

At midnight, that night, they all met up in the common room. It was decided that Lily was going to do the charm, seeing that she knew how. It was difficult trying to fit everybody under the invisibility cloak, and it took them at least five minutes to manoeuvre themselves out of the portrait hole. Then, they had to find Mrs Norris.

"She's never there when you need her, but she's always there when you make a mess." said Rose.

"Good idea." said Sirius. He raised his wand and said, "fountainius!" A spurt of water shot out the end of his wand and onto the floor. In a flash, Mrs Norris was there to see what was going on. Lily performed the spell quickly. It wouldn't take effect until twelve hours later. They heard footsteps nearing. It was Filch! He had come to see what was going on. Afraid that he might somehow be able to see them, they ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction. But six pairs of feet make a lot of noise when running, and even if Filch couldn't see them, he could hear them. He began to run after the noise, he was catching up to them, when the noise stopped. He couldn't hear it anymore. He decided that it must have been Peeves, leading him on, so he shouted into the air, "PEEVES! I'LL GET YOU PEEVES!" and then he walked off carrying Mrs Norris.

They could hear Filch shouting something about Peeves. Good. He was off their trail. They had turned a corner, and found themselves in a strange room. It was furnished with red sofas, and there were pictures of sleeping horses on the walls. Sirius went outside to inspect where they were. It turned out that they had run behind a large tapestry of a horse. He decided that no one else knew about this secret room, because of the thick layer of dust on every surface. He declared it their secret room.

"You know, I think we should stay here for the rest of the night." said Heather seriously, "If Filch is on the warpath, we don't particularly want to meet him. We can go back up to the common room tomorrow morning."

Everyone nodded their agreement. Lily sat down on one of the sofas, lay back her head and closed her eyes. The others did the same.

James woke up the next morning to find that the right side of his body had gone dead. He looked over and saw that Lily had been using him as a pillow. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was ten o' clock. Ten o' clock! They had slept in. He stood up hurriedly causing Lily to bang her head on the armrest.

"OW! Why did you do that for?" she asked James.

"It's ten o' clock." he said as if this was the correct answer to her question.

"TEN O' CLOCK! What are we still doing here then?"

"We slept in." replied James.

Lily's shout had awoken the others. Heather's hair was all frizzy, and she looked like she had come straight out of a horror movie. Sirius told her this. She looked in the large mirror above the couch she had been lying on, and screamed.

"Oh my god! Why is my hair like this?" she accused Sirius.

"I don't know? Why are you asking me?" he said.

"Heath, your hair is always like that in the morning." Rose said helpfully.

"It is? I didn't realise that." Heather sounded puzzled.

"Come on, you guys! We have to go! If anyone catches us here, we're dead!" said Lily.

James threw the invisibility cloak over them all.

"Hey Heather, I can't move, your hair's in the way!" said Sirius. Heather hit him on the nose. It was a slow process walking back up to the common room, when they finally arrived, Heather insisted on wearing the cloak up to the dormitory; she wasn't going to let anyone see her like this. When they were all dressed in clean clothes, and Heather had tamed her hair, Remus said that they should go and see the outcome of their trick. They climbed out of the portrait hole, and did what they had done the night before; they made a mess on the floor. Mrs Norris turned up about five minutes later. She would have been their quicker, but her new hair was heavy. Her coarse grey hair had turned a lovely chestnut colour, and was thick and wavy. They were very pleased with their trick, and even Heather admitted it was worth messing her own hair up.

"What shall we do for our next trick then?" Sirius asked.

"I was thinking we could play a trick on Snape, and I have the perfect thing." said Lily. She proceeded to tell them in hurried whispers.

"That's perfect! We should do it on Halloween, because then everyone will be in the hall, and will be able to see them." said Sirius.

"Where will we get the ingredients from though? This potion needs a lot of ingredients, and some of them are really exotic, they most definitely won't be in the student cupboard." said Rose.

"We'll have to steal them from Serpentine's stock cupboard." said Sirius, "two of us will have to get detention, and that will give us the perfect opportunity to take what we need."

"I nominate Heather and Sirius." said Lily.

"Why us?" asked Heather.

"Because you're disruptive and rude to the teachers anyway, so this won't seem like anything out of the ordinary, I mean if Lily or Rose got a detention, the teachers would probably die of shock!" said James. This earned him to be hit from Heather, Sirius, Rose and Lily.

The next day, they had a potions lesson. Heather and Sirius decided that this would be the perfect time for them to be as rude and obnoxious as possible to try and earn them a detention.

"Good afternoon class. Sit down. Today we shall be making heat potions." said Professor Serpentine.

"What would you say if I said that I didn't want to make a heat potion?" Sirius asked.

"I would say shut up you silly boy, and get out your parchment and quill so you can take notes." snapped Professor Serpentine.

"But I don't want to do that." replied Sirius.

"Well then, I have no choice but to give you a detention and to take ten points from Gryffindor." said Professor Serpentine. To her surprise, Sirius smiled graciously and sat down. Professor Serpentine dismissed this, as she thought Sirius to be a 'very strange and disturbed boy, yet unusually clever'.

A little later when the class had their potions brewing, it was time for Heather to get her detention. She took out a dungbomb and dropped it on the floor. Smoke rose from it and thermal was putrid. Professor Serpentine took out her wand and muttered 'cleanus'. The dungbomb disappeared.

"When I find out who did this, I promise I'll give them a detention." Professor Serpentine narrowed her eyes and looked around the class. Heather raised her hand.

"Please, Professor, I dropped it." she said.

"Very well Miss Cooper, I will also have to give you a detention and ten points from Gryffindor. Be grateful it isn't more." Heather also smiled and sat down without fuss. "I don't know what's got into this class today, you seem almost glad to get a detention." Little did she know that this was very close to the truth.

***

Heather and Sirius got back from their detention with the fronts of their robes bulging. They hurried up to the boy's dorm, and added the ingredients to the potion. Lily stirred it smiling.

"It will be ready in two weeks, just in time for Halloween." she said.

"James, you have been practising your bit of Transfiguration haven't you?" Rose asked.

"Yes, I'm getting quite good at it. Peter looks quite good in a red sparkly dress, you know!" replied James. Peter blushed.

"It'll look even better on Snape." Peter said.

Two weeks later about an hour before the feast, Sirius and James crept down to the kitchens to put the potion in Snape's empty goblet. This caused them to be late for Transfiguration and earn another detention.

Lily, Rose, Heather, Remus, Sirius, James and Peter went down to the feast feeling very excited. Earlier that day in potions Snape had upset Lily and Rose's cauldron, causing Professor Serpentine to give them a detention. This was going to be a chance for Snape to get his come-uppance.

The feast started normally, and the food was delicious as usual. Snape didn't have a drink until about halfway through the feast. When he did, the seven of them watched with bated breath. After ten seconds, the potion took effect. Snape stood up, and started making his way to the front of the hall. This was James' cue. He took out his wand, muttered a few words, and Snapes school robes turned into a long red sparkly dress with a high split up the side, and his shoes into a pair of sparkly red high heels. Snape reached the stage at the front of the hall, and opened his mouth. Out of no-where came some music. Snape began to sing.

_"The minute you walked in the joint, _

_I could see you were a man of distinction,  
a real big spender,  
good lookin',  
so refined,  
say wouldn't you like to know what's goin' on in my mind?  
so let me get right to the point, _

_I don't pop my cork for every man I see....  
Hey Big Spender!  
Spend a little time with me_

_  
do you wanna have fun?  
hows about a few laughs?_

_Hey Big Spender!_

_  
do you wanna have ...fun...fun..fun?  
hows about a few ...laughs...laughs...laughs?_

_Hey Big Spender!_

_Spend A Little Time With Me!_

_  
what do you say to a? Hey hows about a few Laughs!  
  
I could give you some...are you ready for some Fun!  
  
Hey Big Spender!  
Hey Big Spender!_

_your'e the man of my dreams!_

_How's about it? Yeah!"_

Snape then bowed. Sirius wiped the tears of laughter from his face.

"That has to be the best trick eve-" began Heather, but she was cut off because Snape started singing again. This time he was singing 'Tomorrow'.

"Sirius! James! How many drops of potion did you put in?" Lily asked accusingly.

"Um, six?" replied Sirius.

"Six! That means he'll sing six songs. Sirius you're the best!" Heather said.

When Snape had received a standing ovation for 'Tomorrow', he sang 'I Will Always Love You' by Whitney Housten and 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' by Elton John. The next thing he did made the whole hall crack up with laughter. Even Dumbledore was smiling. Snape turned to Professor Serpentine, looked adoringly into her eyes and started singing.

_"But now! There's no-where to hide!_

_Since you pushed my love aside,_

_You're still up in my head,_

_Hopelessly devoted to you._

_Hopelessly devoted to you."_

But the best bit had to be when he ripped off the bottom of the dress, so it was now extremely short and began to sing 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor.

_"At first I was afraid I was petrified_

_Kept thinkin' I could never live without you by my side;_

_But then I spent so many nights_

_Thinkin' how you did me wrong_

_And I grew strong_

_And I learned how to get along_

_And so you're back from outer space_

_I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face_

_I should have changed that stupid lock_

_I should have made you leave your key_

_If I'd known for just one second that you'd be back to bother me_

_Go on now, go walk out the door_

_Just turn around now_

_('cause) you're not welcome anymore_

_Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?_

_Did I crumble_

_Did you think I'd lay down and die?_

_Oh no, not I. I will survive_

_Oh as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive;_

_I've got all my life to live_

_I've got all my love to give and I'll survive,_

_I will survive._

_It took all the strangth I had not to fall apart_

_Kept trying hard to mend the pieces of my broken heart,_

_And I spent oh so many nights_

_Just feeling sorry for myself. I used to cry_

_But now I hold my head up high_

_And you see me somebody new_

_I'm not that chained up little person still in love with you,_

_And so you feel like droppin' in_

_And just expect me to be free_

_Now I'm savin' all my lovin' for someone who's lovin' me_

_Go on now, go walk out the door_

_Just turn around now_

_('cause) you're not welcome anymore_

_Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye?_

_Did I crumble_

_Did you think I'd lay down and die?_

_Oh no, not I. I will survive_

_Oh as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive;_

_I've got all my life to live_

_I've got all my love to give and I'll survive,_

_I will survive."_

Even Dumbledore joined in the clapping and cheering for this song. Because Snape had sung the six songs, the potion had worn off, and he was looking very red. Dumbledore stood up to make a speech.

"I would like to thank Mr Snape for the wonderful performance he provided us with. I never knew he had so many hidden talents. Well done, Mr Snape!"

Snape grew even redder if that was possible, so now he looked like a beetroot with slimy black leaves growing out the top. As the Gryffindors made their way back up to the tower, the seven friends could hear Bryn and Rob, Heather's older brothers talking.

"That has to be the funniest thing I've ever seen." said Bryn.

"I know, but I wonder who put the spell on him, I mean he wouldn't have done those things willingly, would he?" replied Rob.

"Yes, if I found out who it was who had put the spell on him, I would honour then for the rest of their lives." said Bryn.

"Me too." said Rob.

Heather couldn't resist. She hurried over to them and tapped Bryn on his shoulder.

"I am here. You can now honour me." she said.

"What are you talking about?" asked Rob.

"You just said that if you found out who'd cast that spell on Snape, you'd honour them. Well, I'm here. You can honour me." explained Heather.

"You! You're not clever enough!" exclaimed Bryn.

""Well, it was Lily who came up with the initial idea, but I had to get a detention on purpose so I could steal some ingredients." replied Heather.

"Well done! What potion did you use?" asked Rob.

"We used the '_curnfungusliungusdiefuddysumthytreeingning'_ potion." said Lily.

"Well, brave first years, we knight you as the best magical mischief makers to come to Hogwarts," said Bryn grandly, "apart from us, that is!"

They all went to sleep that night feeling very contented. They had played a brilliant trick on Snape, and not even got into trouble.

***

The next few weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays passed uneventfully, that is if you don't count Snape blowing Peter up like a balloon.

Finally, it was time for the holidays. Remus, James, Sirius, Lily, Rose and Heather were all going home, but Peter was staying, as he lived in an orphanage in the holidays, and didn't particularly like it.

They boarded the Hogwarts Express, and in no time at all, they were walking through the barrier and into Kings Cross. Lily spotted her parents and Petunia straight away. She ran over to them and hugged them, even Petunia. She then dragged them over to meet her friends.

"This is James, Heather, Rose, Remus and Sirius." she said, indicating each one in turn.

Lily noticed Petunia looking at Sirius with interest.

"Well, it looks like Lily's found herself some nice friends. We'll have to have you round over the holidays," said Sharna Evans, "Lily will telephone you to arrange things."

"Telephone?" Sirius looked puzzled.

"It's a Muggle thing, I'll owl you." said Lily She hugged each of her friends and then followed her parents to their car.

When Lily arrived at home, her parents led her and Petunia into the living room.

"Lily, Petunia, we have something to tell you." began her Dad, David.

"I'm pregnant," said Sharna, " you're going to have a baby brother or sister."

Lily's face broke into a smile.

"Mum, Dad, that's great! I'm so happy for you!" she said. Petunia on the other hand, had a different view.

"A baby! What do we need a baby for? We've got Lily." she said.

"Watch it, or I'll turn you into a frog!" said Lily. Petunia screamed and ran from the room.

"Lily." her Dad said warningly.

"What? I was only joking! We're not allowed to use magic in the holidays anyway, it's law one hundred and something." said Lily earnestly.

"Well, if you say so." said her Dad.

The next day, Lily owled all of her friends to ask if they wanted to come over for a day. Luckily, they didn't live too far away, so Lily received their replies by the next day. They could all come except Remus who was ill.

***

Two days later, the day that her friends were coming, Lily was ready and waiting at eight thirty. An hour before they were supposed to arrive.

As she watched a program on the television about a witch who used her powers by wriggling her nose, she began to wonder how her friends were going to arrive. Rose was the only one with a Muggle parent, and she wasn't sure whether the others had even heard of cars. At about twenty-five past nine, Lily heard a loud rumbling noise from outside. She hurried up and looked out of the window. There, in the sky was a motorbike. It was flying. Sitting astride it was a man Lily had never seen before, Sirius and James. She blinked just in case she was seeing things. Lily hurried to the door to let them in.

"Hello, I'm Telson Black, Sirius's Father." said the man holding out his hand for Lily to shake. "Bye, boy's, I'll be back later to pick you up. Telson went and climbed onto the motorbike, and took off up into the sky. Lily watched in amazement.

"Are the others here yet?" James asked.

"No, I don't even know how they're getting here." replied Lily.

"They'll probably use Floo powder. Do you have a fire?" said Sirius.

"Yes, there's a fire in the living room, but I don't really underst-" she stopped talking as a loud thump could be heard. They rushed into the living room to find Heather sitting on the floor covered in soot. Rose then fell out of the fire.

"Yes, I was right, they used Floo powder." said James.

"Hello, are we all here now?" said Heather.

"Yes, except Remus, I think." said Sirius.

"Oh, he's not coming, he's ill." said Lily, "anyway, guess what? My Mum's going to have a baby! She's one month pregnant"

"Oh wow! That's such a coincedence! My Mum's going to have a baby too, she's four months pregnant!"

At that moment, Petunia came into the room. She was still wearing her pyjamas, and her hair was mussed. It also looked like she had forgotten to take of her make-up the night before, because there was a line of eyeliner smeared down her face. She took one look at them all, screamed and ran up the stairs.

"Sorry," Lily apologised, "that was my sister. She can look a bit like Medusa in the mornings."

About ten minutes later, Petunia came down the stairs again, but this time she was wearing a very short skirt and low cut top, her pale blonde hair was tied back and she had re-applied some make-up to her face. She came and sat down on the sofa next to Sirius.

"Hello," she said, "it's Serious, isn't it?"

"No, Sirius." Sirius replied.

"Oh, silly me!" Petunia giggled, "I'm Petunia, I bet Lily's told you loads about me."

"Um, no not really," said Sirius.

"Oh, well I will then. I'm thirteen, an Aries, I like long walks on the beach, and I'm single." she said, while giggling flirtatiously. Sirius looked scared.

"That's, um, interesting." he said.

"You know," Petunia said licking her lips, "Sirius the dog star is the second brightest star in the sky, but I think Sirius Black is the brightest thing in this room."

At this Sirius looked terrified. He mouthed 'help' at Lily who was standing behind Petunia.

"Okay Petty, I think it's time I took my friends up to my room, don't you? Lily said.

Petunia scowled. Lily didn't know if this was from her being called Petty, or that Sirius was going. When they got to the room that Lily shared with Petunia, they all burst out laughing.

"Sirius Black is the brightest thing in this room" said James in a high voice, imitating Petunia.

"Oh, shut up!" said Sirius.

"Ahh, but it's cute Sirius." said James.

"I thought I told you to shut up!" Sirius moaned flopping down on Petunia's bed.

"Sirius, I think you'd better get off Petunia's bed, she might get the wrong idea!" said Lily.

"Sirius and Petunia sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" sang James.

"James, shut up, or I'll tell them about your crush on-" Sirius began.

"Ok! We'll stop teasing you!" James said, looking horrified, "anyway, how did you know I had a crush on someone?"

"I read your diary." said Sirius.

"You what! That's private!" exclaimed James.

"Hey, diaries are meant to be read, just like school rules are meant to be broken." said Sirius.

"James keeps a diary?" asked Heather.

"What does he write about?" asked Lily.

"Who does he have a crush on?" asked Rose.

"Ah, now that would be telling." said Sirius.

"You can't just say that James has a crush on someone without telling us who it is! That's not fair." said Lily.

"Lily, haven't you learned? Life's not fair." replied Sirius.

"Well, at least give us a clue. Is she in our year?" asked Heather. Sirius nodded.

"Is she in Gryffindor?" Rose asked. Again Sirius nodded.

"Well, that narrows it down to us three, Nicola and Rebecca." said Lily.

"Do you have a chessboard?" James asked, clearly changing the subject. Lily nodded.

"Yes, it's in one of those drawers." said Lily.

"I'll get it." Sirius offered.

He got up and pulled open the top drawer. He took out a pair of lacy knickers. Lily giggled.

"Oops, wrong drawer. That's Petunia's underwear draw. The one you want is lower down."

"No, it's alright, I'll carry on looking in here." said Sirius.

He pulled out two more pairs of knickers and a black bra. Petunia chose that moment to come into the room. Sirius dropped the underwear into his lap and looked up guiltily.

"Lily! What do you think you're doing giving my underwear to your friends to play with?" Petunia asked.

"Petunia, Sirius found that all by himself. I didn't give it to him." argued Lily.

"Yeah right. Sirius wouldn't do a thing like that, he's an angel." Petunia replied.

"You obviously don't know Sirius very well," said James, "a few weeks ago he turned our Charms teacher's hair pink. On purpose."

"Well even if that is true, which it probably isn't, I still don't believe that Sirius took my underwear out of my drawer." Petunia turned and flounced out of the room.

"Sirius could do no wrong in her eyes." said Heather.

They spent the rest of the day playing Quidditch (James had brought some brooms), frightening Petunia with pretend spells and potions, and teasing Sirius. Finally at eight o' clock, Heather and Rose returned through the fire (to the horror of Petunia) and Telson Black came to pick James and Sirius up. Finally when they had all gone, Lily settled back in an armchair with a contented sigh. She flicked on the television and watched in silence until Petunia came in.

"Lily, my dearest sister in the whole wide world?" Petunia said in a sickly sweet voice.

"What do you want?" Lily asked.

"Does Sirius have a phone number?" Petunia replied.

"No, idiot. Wizards and Witches don't have phones." Lily said.

"Does he have an address then?" Petunia asked sounding impatient.

"How should I know?" Lily said sounding very annoyed.

"Well, you sent him a letter, you must know his address." Petunia said.

"I don't know his address, Witches and Wizards use owls to carry their post. You just have to tell them who to take the letter to, and they will find them. Even if Sirius was an escaped prisoner on the run, an owl would still be able to find him." Lily explained.

"Oh, right. You've got an owl, haven't you?"Petunia asked. Lily nodded. "Can I use it then, please?"

"I suppose so, but I won't give it to Holly to send until we get back to school, then I'll be able to enchant it to sing." said Lily, a plan forming in her head.

"Okay then, I'll write it, and you'll send it when you get to school, okay?" Petunia sounded pleased.

***

Two weeks later saw Lily's return to school. She had had a number of owls turn up on Christmas day, each bearing a gift from her friends. From Heather she had received a small purple teddy bear, from Rose a cheating quill, from Remus, a vast box of sweets, from Sirius, a bulging bag of acid pops, from James a spy glass that let her see anyone at anytime, and from Peter a single bar of chocolate.

A few weeks into the new term, Lily decided it was time to send Sirius his letter from Petunia. She enlisted Heather and Rose's help in putting the spell on the letter to make it sing, as it was quite complicated. Sirius, however, remained oblivious. After she had performed the incantation on the letter, she took it up to the owlery to give to Holly. She told Holly to deliver it during breakfast, so everyone could see.

The next morning, Heather, Rose and Lily all went down to breakfast with feelings of excitement in them. When the post arrived, they burst into a fit of giggles, and the boys couldn't work out what was wrong with them. They soon found out though. Holly swooped down to where Sirius was sitting and dropped the letter in his breakfast. Sirius opened it, and a voice began singing.

_"Sirius Black, he shall be mine,_

_His black hair, so fine,_

_His brown eyes divine._

_You sparkle so bright,_

_You light up the night,_

_Sirius Black, don't put up a fight._

_Sirius Black, I'm declaring my love to you._

_You're an angel in disguise,_

_You fly high in the sky,_

_Sirius Black, I love you!_

_Dear Sirius. I hope you liked the poem. Love from Petunia Evans."_

The whole hall started laughing. Sirius slid down in his chair under the table, his face very red.

"I never knew my sister was such a good poet!" said Lily.

Finally, Sirius resurfaced.

"But, she's a Muggle!" Sirius looked bewildered, "how could she have made it sing…unless a certain witch had something to do with it?" he glared at Lily. She couldn't keep a straight face, and burst into laughter.

"It was too good an opportunity!" she said, trying to keep her laughter under control.

"I'll get you back for this if it's the last thing I do Evans!" Sirius said menacingly.

"Hey! That's not fair! Petunia wrote the poem, and Heather and Rose helped me to put the spell on it!" Lily complained.

"It was still your idea though." Sirius said. Lily said nothing.

Later on in the day, during a very very boring History of Magic lesson, the class sat in a stupor, just like in every other history lesson. Professor Binns was droning on and on about some Wizard who'd helped defeat another wizard – or something. Sirius sat there staring into space. His gaze fell on Lily, and he began working out how to get her back. Suddenly he spoke to James.

"Lily has lovely, long _red_ hair, hasn't she?" James looked alarmed.

"Sirius, are you feeling okay?" James asked.

"Yes, yes, fine, but don't you think Lily's hair is so beautiful?" Sirius asked again.

"Well, yes I suppose so." said James.

"I wonder what she would do if say, someone _accidentally_ gave her a sweet or something that would turn her hair pink?"

"Oh no, Sirius, you wouldn't dare!" James sounded shocked.

"But if it was an accident?" Sirius said probingly.

"Well, if it was an accident, maybe…but you can't go colouring her hair on purpose, McGonagall would kill you!" James said.

"Well that's settled then. I shall _accidentally _offer her asweet that turns her hair pink." Sirius said.

"Sirius! That's not what I said!" James said.

"It may not be what you said, but deep down you know you meant that." Sirius replied. James groaned.

Later that day, Sirius received a small parcel from Honeydukes.

"How did you get them to send it to you so quickly?" James asked.

"I told them that it was a special delivery for Albus Dumbledore." Said Sirius.

"But you're not." Said James.

"I know that stupid, anyway, I'm going to give a sweet to Lily later." Said Sirius.

"What if Heather and Rose want one?" asked James.

"Well, they can have one, they were in on the trick too." Sirius replied.

After lessons had finished for the day, Sirius and the others went back up to the common room. As Sirius had said he would, he offered Lily a sweet. To his delight, she took one and popped it into her mouth. So did Heather and Rose. The spell would take effect in ten minutes. To his horror, Remus and Peter asked for a sweet also. Sirius had no choice but to give them one. If he didn't, the girls would surely get suspicious. Sirius put the bag of sweets on a table and sat back in his chair. Nicola and Rebecca, the other Gryffindor first years came over then, to ask for help with their Transfiguration homework. James helped them, and then Nicola noticed the bag of sweets on the table.

"Ooh, do you mind if we have a sweet?" she asked. Sirius had to say yes. He buried his head in his hands and moaned.

"This isn't how it was supposed to go!"

At that moment, Lily's, Heather's and Rose's hair turned different colours. To Sirius' disappointment, Lily's just turned a deeper shade of red, that actually suited her quite well, but Heather's blond hair turned a frightening shade of blue, and Rose's brown hair a bright Magenta colour. A couple of seconds later, Remus' hair turned an acid green colour, and Peter's had turned a Cyan colour, Nicola's a deep purple, and Rebecca's a mouldy yellow.

They all began laughing hysterically, at the others until Sirius held up a mirror so that they could actually see the colour of their own hair. Heather screamed and started hitting Sirius. To his surprise, so did Rose. Remus growled, sounding frighteningly like a wolf, and wrestled Sirius to the floor. Nicola and Rebecca jumped on top of them, and finally Peter threw himself on top of them all, sqaushing them flat. Only Lily and James were left. James decided it looked like fun, and threw himself on top of them all as well, but Lily was still admiring her new hair colour in the mirror. She had to admit, it looked good. It was a deep red, a rich plum colour.

Five minutes later, when everyone had climbed off Sirius, and he was complaining about 'heavy elephant's called Peter', Heather spoke.

"Sirius, how long will our hair be like this?"

"Um, about a month?" Sirius said.

"A month! I'm going to have to have bright pink hair for a month!" the normally quiet Rose screamed.

"Your hair's Magenta," James said helpfully.

"Shut up!" Rose said, "anyway, how come you didn't eat any sweets?"

"Because I knew what Sirius was going to do." James said, looking guilty.

"Why ddin't you stop us eating them then?" Heather demanded.

"It was only meant for Lily, Heather and Rose, you know to get back at her for that singing poem thing." Sirius said.

They all threw pillows at him.

***

About half-way through the term they were sitting in the Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom, waiting for the teacher to come. She didn't. Fifteen minutes after the bell had rung, a tall man with a handlebar moustache and a bald head walked swiftly into the classroom.

"Good morning. I am your new defence against the dark arts teacher, Professor Samuels. Sit down." he said briskly.

"Where's Professor Fry?" Nicola asked.

"Unfortunately, Professor Fry was taken into a mental hospital. Teaching here was just proving too stressful," At this everyone turned and looked at Sirius.

"What? What did I do?" he asked.

"Settle down. I am not going to ask why I have a class full of people with multicoloured hair. Now, turn to page 42…"

***

Around the 20th of April, in the Easter holidays, Lily received a letter whilst she was in the common room doing her Charms homework. She ripped open the envelope, pulled out a Muggle magazine and a piece of paper. It was from Petunia.

_Dear Lily,_

_How are you at that freak school? How is my darling Sirius? I've sent the latest copy of 'FAB' for you. Don't you think that the model on page 42 looks so much like Sirius? And guess what? The model's name is Leo Black! Sirius is a constellation, and so is Leo, and they both have the same surname! Are they related?_

_Ciao for now_

_Petunia_

Lily picked up the copy of 'FAB' and flicked through it until she reached page 42. She gasped in surprise. Petunia was right. The model looked a lot like Sirius.

"Hey Lils, what are you reading?" James asked, bounding over, Sirius and Remus right behind.

"A magazine," Lily said, not looking up. She was absorbed in the article about Leo Black.

"What's a magazine?" Sirius asked in confusion.

"It's like a newspaper, except it's for Muggle teenage girls." replied Lily.

"Where did you get it from?" James asked.

"Petunia sent it with a letter." she said, handing them the letter. He and Sirius read it quickly. Sirius went pale.

"Lily, could I have a look at that magazine please?" he said in a strange voice, it sounded like he was being serious! (No pun intended)

"Sure," Lily said and tossed him the magazine. Sirius took one look at the page and went even paler. At that moment, Heather and Rose came in. The six of them were the only ones who had stayed for the Easter holidays out of Gryffindor.

"Hey guys, Sirius, what's wrong, you look like you've seen I ghost!" Rose said.

"I have sort of," Sirius said. He was silent for a moment.

"In a year or two when you feel like explaining, please do." said Heather.

"Alright," he took a deep breath, "This model in the magazine, Leo Black, is my brother. He is seven years older than me, so he would be eighteen by now. Leo was a wizard, but was never interested in magic, not real magic. He got a Hogwarts acceptance letter when he was eleven, but refused to go. Mum and Dad tried to make him, but he just wouldn't. Leo was fascinated by illusionists. Muggle magic we call it. He bought a Muggle TV so that he could watch all the shows about illusionists. When he was fourteen, he had mastered many of the simple tricks an illusionist is required to do, you know, sawing a woman in half, sticking knives into boxes with people inside, that sort of thing. He had a girlfriend who was a Muggle. She worked at a Circus, she was one of those contortionists that can make themselves really small. At fifteen, he ran away with her to perform in the Circus. We visited him once, and watched one of his shows. He was really good. And then, two years ago his boss came to our house to tell us that Leo was dead. They said that one of his tricks had gone wrong. He had been strapped to a table, and a big razor blade was coming towards him. Astra, his girlfriend was the assistant, and was supposed to stop the razor from reaching him. She didn't. The machinery had broken, and Leo was sliced in half. His boss said that the audience was splattered with blood and-" 

Sirius stopped, unable to go on. When he had composed himself, he continued. 

"For the past two years I've thought Leo was dead. It can't be him in the magazine. It can't be."

The others just sat there. No one knew what to say. Sirius had never told anyone about Leo, not even James. 

"That is so sad!" Heather said.

"I never knew you had a brother." said James.

Both Lily and Rose also looked on the verge of tears.

"Stupid, stupid Petunia!" Lily said, "why did she have to bring all this up?"

"No, it's alright Lily, it feels good to actually tell someone." Sirius said. They were all silent for a few minutes.

"Lil, do you mind if I keep this magazine?" Sirius asked.

"Of course not." Lily said.

A couple of minutes later, James announced that he was going to bed. Remus, Rose and Lily followed suit.

"Are you coming?" James asked Sirius.

"Nah. I think I'll stay here a little longer." Sirius replied.

"Heather? Are you going to come to bed?" Rose asked.

"No, I'm not tired yet." Heather replied.

Lily, Rose, Remus and James went up to their respective dormitories.

"Are you alright?" Heather asked Sirius.

"Well, I suppose." Sirius said, "but it's impossible! Leo's been dead for two years. I even saw his body at the funeral. Dad had fixed the two halves back together with magic. There were loads of witnesses at the Circus, and Astra, and they all saw him die! They wouldn't all lie!" Heather hugged him again. After that, Heather and Sirius didn't talk about Leo anymore. They looked through the magazine, laughing at strange haircuts and reading their horoscopes. Then, Sirius reached the problem pages.

"Ooh, this one sounds interesting," Sirius said, and Heather snatched the magazine off him and began to read out loud.

"Dear Mandi, I think I am going crazy. I live next door to a very large family. They have about twenty kids! Anyway, when it is the school holidays, strange things always seem to happen. There are always owls flying over their house in the daytime! One time I am sure I saw them sitting on brooms, in the middle of the sky! Their house is very small, and I cannot see how they can all fit in there, and when I went over to borrow some sugar, the Mother wouldn't let me in, she made me wait outside. I think that they may be wizards and witches, but they don't exist, do they? Witches only exist in fairy tales and on television. Am I going crazy? From Ellaina Yates."

"Does she live next to you? Your Mum and Dad have twenty kids don't they?"

"NO! She is not my next door neighbour, and wnyway, I have seven brothers and sisters, not nineteen!" Heather looked like she could kill Sirius, so he hastily read out another problem.

"How can I make him love me?" Sirius read aloud from the page, "Dear Mandi, I have a huge problem. I am in love with someone, and he doesn't know it. He is two years younger than me, and is one of my sister's best friends. He has the most gorgeous brown eyes, and lovely black hair. How can I make him love me? From P. Evans." Heather snorted with laughter.

"P. Evans! That has to be Petunia!" she cried gleefully, "writing about you!"

"Let's see what Mandi has to say," said Sirius.

"Dear P.Evans," Heather read, "the first thing you have to do, is make sure that you really, really love this guy. When you have done this, you must ask yourself, why is your sister friends with such a gorgeous person? Are you sure that your sister is really not in love with him herself? In you're letter, you described the boy as being one of your sister's _best_ friends. Not many girls have a boy as their best friend. Maybe she is secretly in love with him herself. If you make a move on her friend, maybe you'll have a fight. When you have done these things, the only way to get the boy to notice you is to be yourself. Act normally whenever you're around him, and soon he might start to like you. I hope this answers your question, P. Evans."

Sirius and Heather burst into peels of laughter. When the laughter had subsided, Sirius spoke.

"So, what do you think? Do you think that Agony Aunt Mandi is right? Is Lily secretly in love with me?"

"Um, no I don't think so." said Heather.

Soon afterwards, they both fell asleep.

***

Lily was the first awake the next morning. She got up, got dressed, and went down to the deserted common room. The first thing she saw was Heather and Sirius asleep on a couch. Sirius' arm was around Heather's shoulders, and Heather was leaning on Sirius shoulder sucking her thumb. Their legs were entangled in each other. Lily grinned wickedly. She ran up to her dorm, awoke Rose and grabbed Heather's polaroid camera. Then, she dragged Rose down to the common room, and up the boys staircase. She pushed open the door to the first years dorm, and went in. She and Rose tried to wake James and Remus up, but failed. In the end, Lily picked up the large jug of water that was on the dresser, and poured it all over James face. He woke up. Rose seeing that this worked, did the same to Remus. 

"What do you think you're doing?" James asked, with a shout that waoke Peter.

"Shh! Come and look at this!" she whispered. The three boys and Rose followed her down to the common room.

"Aaah, they look so cute!" said James. 

Lily snapped a picture. The flash on the camera woke Heather and Sirius up. Heather tried to stand up, but as her legs were entwined with Sirius', they both fell on the floor. When they had untangled themselves, Sirius stood up, and asked Lily a very strange question.

"Lily, do you love me?"

"What did you say Black?" Lily said.

"I said, do you love me? Because Aunt Mandi seems to think you do." Sirius replied.

"I don't have an Aunt Mandi, what are you going on about?" Lily asked.

"Well, this magazine you gave me, it has problem pages, and your sister wrote to it asking how she can make me love her." Sirius explained.

"Here, listen to this," said Heather, and she read out Petunia's letter and Aunt Mandi's answer. Lily and the others burst out laughing.

"Well, I can assure you Sirius, I am _not_ secretly in love with you," Lily said.

"Good." said Sirius, "cuz you're ugly anyway!" he joked.

"And if I was in love with you, I would be dead, because Heather would kill me." Lily said. Heather went red.

"Shall we go down to breakfast then?" James asked brightly, and began heading towards the portrait hole.

"James, I think you'd better get dressed first." Rose said. James blushed and hurried up to his dorm to change. The others went to get dressed as well.

Over the next few days, Sirius seemed very determined to find out why Leo was pictured in the magazine, when he apparantly died two years earlier. He wrote to his parents to ask them if they knew anything. On the day the rest of the school arrived back, Sirius received an owl from his parents while he was in the common room losing abismally at chess against Remus. He took the letter from the envelope and read it.

_Dear Sirius,_

_Thankyou for your letter, I hope things with you are well. Your letter surprised and shocked us, we never expected for you to find out about Leo. I suppse I had better tell you what is going on._

_Eighteen years ago, I gave birth to twins. They were identical in every way. We named them Leo and Darv. From the moment Darv was born, we knew that there was something wrong with him. He had some sort of disease that neither magic nor medicine would cure. The only cure was time. We had to let the disease run it's course. Your Father and I were very young at the time, and we had not expected twins. Neither of us were employed, and we felt that we could not support two babies, let alone an ill one. We decided that we should put Darv up for adoption, so that he could have the care and attention he would need. Darv was taken in by a Muggle family. We decided not to tell Leo about Darv, but we very much regretted that when Leo was killed. He died without knowing he had a brother. Leo's death was so very unusual, that it was in all the papers, Muggle and Wizarding. We supposed that Darv must have seen Leo's picture in the papers, because he searched for us, and then he eventually found us, one year ago. We were overjoyed to see him, and he us. He was a model for a Muggle magazine. He visited us many times, and then one time he asked us a very unusual question. He asked us if he could take over Leo's identity for publicity reasons. He said that Leo Black sounded much better than Darv Mugwump. We agreed to let him use Leo's identity for publicity reasons. We never thought you'd find out, because he would only be modelling for Muggle magazines and publications, as he had turned out to be a squib. We are very sorry that you had to find out this way._

_Love you always_

_Mum xxxxxxxxxx_

Sirius sat back in shock. He had had two brothers. One was still alive. Once the shock had worn off, he bagn to feel angry. His parents had let Leo die without knowing he had a brother. And they had never told him about Darv! He would have thought they would when Leo had died. Then they let this unknown brother steal Leo's name! How dare they! He didn't tell his friends about Darv, he wanted to keep it his secret.

The next few days, Sirius acted in a very un–Sirius like way. He was very quiet, and didn't make fun of Snape anymore. The others were very worried about him. Then, a week later, he tried to turn Snape's hair blue, and they knew he was back. Unfortunately, Snape's hair was so greasy, that it repelled the spell, and instead it turned Professor Samuels hair blue. For this, Sirius got his one hundred and fourth detention for that year.

***

Two months later, it was almost time for the summer holidays. They only had ten days left. Sirius decided that they should end the year with a bang. Literally. He decided to put a firework under everybody's chair except theirs at the end of year feast. Nobody liked to point out that this would frame them.

An hour before the feast was about to start, they crept down to the hall under James invisibility cloak. Sirius and Heather took the Gryffindor table, Lily and James the Raveclaw table, Remus and Rose the Hufflepuff table and Peter the Slytherin table. The fireworks had a timer on them, and Sirius had programmed each one to go off at exactly the same time.

The plan worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, as they had predicted, the fact that fireworks didn't go off under their chairs proved that they set up the prank.

***

Two hours later, all six of them (seven if you count Peter) were cleaning the burn marks off the floor in the Great Hall.

"Thanks a lot Sirius," Heather complained, "you just had to get us a detention on the last day of term, didn't you?"

"You didn't have to agree to the prank, you know." said Sirius.

"Oh really? I remember you threatening to hex us if we didn't agree to help you," said Heather angrily.

"Oh well, at least we made our mark," said Sirius.

"Yeah, we made about a thousand marks that we have to clean before they let us out of here," grumbled Rose.

"Hey guys, lighten up, holiday's tomorrow, remember?" James said.

Finally at two o'clock in the morning, they finally finished cleaning the hall.

***

The next day, they were seated in a carriage in the Hogwarts Express talking about what pranks they were going to perform next year.

"I was thinking that we could send love letters to Snape, and pretend they're from that really ugly Slytherin, Vivien Anderson." said Sirius.

"Good idea, but there's one problem. Vivien Anderson is a boy!" said James.

"Really? I had no idea. I always thought he was a girl." Sirius replied.

"Well we could do that, but make the love letters from that other really ugly Slytherin, Sophie Slutslag." said Rose.

Sirius also decided that they were going to spend the day at James house sometime in the holidays.

A couple of hours later, the train pulled in at Kings Cross. They all went through the ticket barrier, and Lily tried to see her parents through the crowds. Finally, she saw them, and she ran at them and leapt into her Fathers arms.

"Daddy! I've missed you so much! And you Mum!" Lily shrieked, "Where's Petunia?"

"I don't know, she was here a moment ago," said her Dad.

It turned out that Petunia was talking to Sirius' parents, and she was giving them the impression that she was Sirius girlfriend. His parents were looking at her suspiciously. Lily watched as Sirius came over, and his parents interigated him about 'the horse faced girl'. Sirius then dragged them over to where Lily and her parents were standing.

"Lily, will you please tell my parents that Petunia is not my girlfriend?" he said.

"Well, I could tell them that Petunia isn't your girlfriend, but why would I want to when I remember how you caused us all to have multicoloured hair, or the fact thet you got us all detentions last night?" she said teasingly.

"Lily, please?" Sirius asked looking sincere.

"I suppose so," she gave Sirius' parents her most charming smile "Mr and Mrs Black, my sister is not Sirius' girlfriend, but if you want to meet his real girlfriend, you'll have to talk to that girl over there." she pointed at Heather.

"When you come round to James' house I am going to kill you!" Sirius shouted as his parents dragged him over to where Heather's large family was gathered. Lily laughed out loud. Petunia pouted.

"Is that really Sirius girlfriend?" she asked.

"Well not at the moment, but she will be in a couple of years time," Lily said.

"How do you know that?" Petunia asked suspiciously.

"Well they have so much in common and considering that they spent the night together on a sofa, it's pretty predictable." Lily said.

"I bet they didn't really spend the night together on a sofa!" Petunia said disbeleivingly.

"Yes they did! I have a photo to prove it as well," said Lily. She pulled out the photo of Sirius and Heather lying on the sofa, and Petunia fainted.

Lily giggled. If the next year at Hogwarts was as good as the last, she was sure that she was going to like it a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N Did you like it? I know that I enjoyed writing it, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it as well. The next part will be up shortly, probably tomorrow, or even later today if I'm feeling generous. This series is the longest thing I've ever written, and I am really pleased with it. 

Disclaimer: Any names you recognise from the Harry Potter books belong to the very talented Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Heather Copperfield and Rose Barns belong to me. Professor Serpentine and Professor Samuels also belong to me. The songs that Snape sang whilst under the influence of the _curnfungusliungusdiefuddysumthytreeingning_ potion, belong to the people that wrote them.


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